Last Friday the 2nd of January we left the Spinhuis empty and clean and handed over the keys to the university. As we still had quite a lot of drinks and food leftover while our space was taken away, we marched with about 40/50 people to the Maagdenhuis and handed out free drinks and soup.

The Spinhuis Collective announced that they are leaving the occupied Spinhuis building this Friday. They will be handing the University of Amsterdam the key at 3 pm that same day. Last Monday the court deemed that the UvA does have an urgent need to evict the premises. The UvA had threatened with heavy fines if the collective failed to cooperate with their plans to put back the building to use. This leaves the students no alternative but to stop their protest for the time being.

Since the Spinhuis was squatted last September, the university has repeatedly tried to kick the students out of the building. In October the university sued the individuals who had filed a request for public access to government information (Wob-verzoek) about the Spinhuis. The UvA claimed an exorbitant compensation fee of 100,000 euro per student for every day they were present in the building. This was a clear sign that the UvA were not ready to comply with the Wob request for information. Such refusal was, according to the students, the biggest hindrance to any semblance of a constructive dialogue.

“It’s happening all around us!” First in the Science Park -a joint venture of the Free University (VU) and the UvA-, then with the funding cuts to humanities, and now the VU is also aggressively cutting corners, without ever giving students or professors any voice in these matters. Instead, big spending seems to be justified whenever complaints are raised: they sent us security guards with dogs, which cost hundreds of thousands of euros. With that money you can easily pay two full studies at the faculty of humanities,” says Ruud van der Veen, a member of the student council. The way the university throttles any kind of criticism is what the students set out to protest in the first place. And that type of governance is being reflected very clearly in the University’s response. Top-down management, participation deficit, fetishism of performance targets; the university is being run as a corporation and is increasingly an extension of the business sector.

In contrast, the students have witnessed in the past months how much a blossoming academic community can do for a university. There is a clear need for spaces that students can self-manage and where they can organise themselves. From debates with MPs to a workshop on psychogeography, through a regular cult-film cinema and a feminist poetry evening, we have participated in all sorts of things. One thing is clear: the rector can be proud that they have made us into much more efficient rebels,” ironizes Van der Veen.

IKIRU 1952
(生きる)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
143 minutes
In Japanese with English subtitles

Although Japanese director Akira Kurosawa is best known for his huge, epic samurai movies, it is this film which is considered by many critics to be his finest creation (and he has made so many masterpieces). Ikiru centers on a melancholy bureaucrat Kenji Watanabe who works at Tokyo City Hall. After dedicating 30 years of his life to this dull job, he suddenly is shaken by the realization that it’s all been a waste, and starts searching for some kind of meaning to life. In the end, this movie is about someone who desperately wants to live before they die.

Based on the story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Leo Tolstoy, this translation to the screen is beautifully realized. The acting is haunting, the cinematography and the music score perfect. Its narrative structure isn’t the standard formula storytelling, it’s inventive and beautifully thought-provoking. A film which is absolutely riveting and remains one of the most heart-wrenching depictions of the human spirit in its struggle for redemption. If you want to detox from American holiday blockbusters, and discover a new way to see both life and cinema, then this film is may come as an incredible relief.

Spinhuis
On the Korte Spinhuissteeg, a tiny alleyway just off Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185
20:30
Free screening

So monday will be our second judgement day party. It´s the day of the verdict of our court-case with the university board. The previous time the judge rules away the UvA´s immediate grounds for eviction. This time it might be different. It might be our last party. Please come out and support! There will be music, beer, shitty wine, and everything you love about the Spinhuis!

Het Spinhuis is a squatted independent student-centre in the former Common Room. It’s an autonomous bottom-up organized space outside the university’s management structures. In the last three months it has been open daily from Monday to Friday as a study- and meeting-place with lots of activities and events.

Coming Friday night we celebrate the third monthly anniversary with lots of music and a few speakers. This may be one of the last parties in the Spinhuis, so do come!

Het Spinhuis is a squatted independent student-centre in the former Common Room. It’s an autonomous bottom-up organized space outside the university’s management structures. In the last three months it has been open daily from Monday to Friday as a study- and meeting-place with lots of activities and events.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/events/846603758716471

and earlier that day…
FRIDAY 15:00 March for Free Education: https://www.facebook.com/events/864400466938639

THURSDAY DECEMBER 11 20:30
Directed by Lindsay Anderson
112 minutes
English spoken with English subtitles!

Sometimes pigeon-holed as a May 68 prophecy, If… becomes dated far less easily than other “youth in revolt” movies of the late 60s because it’s nearly as timeless in its themes as it is of an experimental period in commercial narrative cinema. A film like this was only possible in the late 60s. Financed by Paramount Pictures and then nearly shelved when they saw its concluding machine-gun catharsis, it drew darts at its self-styled “anarchist / classical” director Lindsay Anderson and made an instant star of the rebellious young actor Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange), nervously simmering in the role of Mick Travis, a dissident student at a posh English public school.

When it was eventually released in Great Britain it was given a X-rating. It is a film which was loved by Stanley Kubrick so much that he gave the lead role of his next film, A Clockwork Orange, to its lead actor Malcolm McDowell. This film will be screened in high-definition.

“IF…. is a daring anarchic vision of British society in the late sixties England. It centers on the character of Mick Travis, who, along with his chums, kick at authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior against the powers that be. Violence, sex, fantasy, sadism and poetry- it has it all! Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, If…. remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells….and one of the nearly perfect films in the history of cinema.“

+ SHORT FILM BEFORE THE FEATURE:
NIGHT AND FOG 1955
(Nuit et brouillard)
Directed by Alain Resnais
30 minutes
In French with English subtitles